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The Senate is intentionally designed to give more power to smaller states. Otherwise, the 10-15 biggest states could routinely gang up and pass federal legislat

The Senate is intentionally designed to give more power to smaller states. Otherwise, the 10-15 biggest states could routinely gang up and pass federal legislation. Not a really nice outlook for a federal government.

nitrogen 6y ago
Indeed. This is a problem that happens anyway. Getting rid of the Senate would make it worse. Just look what percentage of the western states is federal land, and what percentage of the Colorado river is claimed by California, both at the expense of people who actually live in those states.
danans 6y ago
The Senate was designed that way when the distribution of "Free white males 16 years and upward" - the only people who could vote at that time - was far more uniform across the states [1]. There was only 1 order of magnitude difference between the voting eligible population of the smallest state (Delaware) and the largest state (Virginia). Today, that difference is 2 orders of magnitude, which is massive in comparison to what it was when the Senate seat allocation was designed. Arguments for the preservation of that system are nothing more than shallowly disguised arguments for the continued selective erosion of voting power of individuals in high population states. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census
- ac29 6y ago
  The US system isnt perfect, but arguments against the current allocation of Senators is effectively arguing that the Senate should be abolished (which would take a constitutional amendment). I think small states suddenly finding themselves largely powerless would consider secession if that were the case.
  - danans 6y ago
    > I think small states suddenly finding themselves largely powerless would consider secession if that were the case. I have little doubt they would, and in doing so start a war. After all, it's happened before, and many people are plainly agitating for it now. It's the "my enhanced privilege or your destruction, choose one" argument, which is a clear demonstration of one way the system codifies structural inequality and is transparently anti democratic. In a similar way, corporate lobbying distorts democratic representation, and by all appearances, they overlap quite a bit, differentiated only by the industry sector and which Senator they support.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- fhrow4484 6y ago
  > The Senate was designed that way when the distribution [...] was far more uniform across the states Doesn't this goes against your argument then? At a time where most of the voting population was at its peak uniformity, the 2-senator-per-state model was invented to ensure that the bigger states could not bully their way in federal legislation. It was invented at the time where it was the least needed, since as you said, voting population was very uniform, so they mostly want the same things.
  - danans 6y ago
    > Doesn't this goes against your argument then? No. It was also anti-democratic at that time, but because the distribution of the vote was an order of magnitude less divergent, and the only people who could vote were landowning white men, it was able to succeed politically as a compromise. Since then, its anti-democratic effects have magnified as the population divergence between states has magnified.
yumraj 6y ago
But what are states, artificial boundaries within a country for administration purposes. Why should 5 million people in a particular boundary have the same say as 50 million people living in another boundary. It makes no logical sense.. In fact it is anti-democracy as all citizens’ votes are not equal. In fact this applies to the electoral vote system also.
katbyte 6y ago
so instead the small states get to gang up and impose their will on the rest with only a fraction of the population?
austhrow743 6y ago
There are a billion ways you can split a democratic body in to a majority and minority. We don't give the left handed, orphans, or people whose name starts with F extra voting power because the righties, parent havers, and all the other name start letters could gang up on them. So if being a minority isn't an obvious reason on its own to be given more voting power, then there needs to be more reason to do so for the states, and every time I see this brought up the only defence is that the small states would have a minority of votes.

nitrogen 6y ago

Indeed. This is a problem that happens anyway. Getting rid of the Senate would make it worse. Just look what percentage of the western states is federal land, and what percentage of the Colorado river is claimed by California, both at the expense of people who actually live in those states.

danans 6y ago

The Senate was designed that way when the distribution of "Free white males 16 years and upward" - the only people who could vote at that time - was far more uniform across the states [1]. There was only 1 order of magnitude difference between the voting eligible population of the smallest state (Delaware) and the largest state (Virginia). Today, that difference is 2 orders of magnitude, which is massive in comparison to what it was when the Senate seat allocation was designed. Arguments for the preservation of that system are nothing more than shallowly disguised arguments for the continued selective erosion of voting power of individuals in high population states. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1790_United_States_census

ac29 6y ago
The US system isnt perfect, but arguments against the current allocation of Senators is effectively arguing that the Senate should be abolished (which would take a constitutional amendment). I think small states suddenly finding themselves largely powerless would consider secession if that were the case.
- danans 6y ago
  > I think small states suddenly finding themselves largely powerless would consider secession if that were the case. I have little doubt they would, and in doing so start a war. After all, it's happened before, and many people are plainly agitating for it now. It's the "my enhanced privilege or your destruction, choose one" argument, which is a clear demonstration of one way the system codifies structural inequality and is transparently anti democratic. In a similar way, corporate lobbying distorts democratic representation, and by all appearances, they overlap quite a bit, differentiated only by the industry sector and which Senator they support.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
fhrow4484 6y ago
> The Senate was designed that way when the distribution [...] was far more uniform across the states Doesn't this goes against your argument then? At a time where most of the voting population was at its peak uniformity, the 2-senator-per-state model was invented to ensure that the bigger states could not bully their way in federal legislation. It was invented at the time where it was the least needed, since as you said, voting population was very uniform, so they mostly want the same things.
- danans 6y ago
  > Doesn't this goes against your argument then? No. It was also anti-democratic at that time, but because the distribution of the vote was an order of magnitude less divergent, and the only people who could vote were landowning white men, it was able to succeed politically as a compromise. Since then, its anti-democratic effects have magnified as the population divergence between states has magnified.

yumraj 6y ago

But what are states, artificial boundaries within a country for administration purposes. Why should 5 million people in a particular boundary have the same say as 50 million people living in another boundary. It makes no logical sense.. In fact it is anti-democracy as all citizens’ votes are not equal. In fact this applies to the electoral vote system also.

katbyte 6y ago

so instead the small states get to gang up and impose their will on the rest with only a fraction of the population?

austhrow743 6y ago

There are a billion ways you can split a democratic body in to a majority and minority. We don't give the left handed, orphans, or people whose name starts with F extra voting power because the righties, parent havers, and all the other name start letters could gang up on them. So if being a minority isn't an obvious reason on its own to be given more voting power, then there needs to be more reason to do so for the states, and every time I see this brought up the only defence is that the small states would have a minority of votes.